Freely adapted from Alfred Jarry’s original ground zero absurdist ,masterpiece, King Ubu is a halitosis blast of rude nihilism with jokes, freshly adapted for our world of for our world of onrushing apocalypse. Watch helplessly as the horrible Ubu, his equally horrible wife, and a bunch of narcissists, idiots, and psychopaths all try to out-murder each other and take over fake Poland in a meaningless effort to just get it all over with.

King Ubu is about the screaming two-year-old that emerges in humanity where our selfish needs meet basic logic. Ubu wants money as king, but then he has to spend money to make the people like him to give him money, but he wants to keep his money, and, and—“It's all bullshit!” Yes. Yes it is. We’ve all been there. I’d take care not to read too much into this play, but it's a cathartic experience to spend an evening shitting on art, decency, and hope. - Kevin Thomas, Time Out Chicago

And after all the sound and fury of this rambunctious production one hearkens back to Yeats’ uneasy response to the original “Ubu Roi” as he lamented “Now after us, the savage God…” Or as our parents used to say, “What is this world coming to?” According to the original “Ubu Roi” and now “King Ubu,” nothing super good. - Kaelyn Storme, NewCity Stage.

Jessica Saxvik* as Mrs. Ubu, Drew Brown as Captain Shithead, and Gregory Peters* as King Ubu. Photo by Jasmine Dunn.

Image by Layne Manzer.

WAR SONG

by Jessica Wright Buha

Original Music Mallory Nees

WAR SONG is a a music-and-poetry-suffused look at race and the Civil War through the eyes of Christian Fleetwood, publisher, choirmaster, Sergeant in the 4th Regiment United States Colored Infantry, and winner of The Congressional Medal of Honor. Drawn from his speech, "The Negro As A Soldier," music and songs from the Civil War, and the words of Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman, War Song is about war, glory, despair, America, and the old flag; the stories we tell and the songs we sing about them.

Lt. Maj. Christian Fleetwood, scholar, father, and highly decorated veteran of the United States Colored Infantry, makes the final touches the night before his big speech defending the rights of African-Americans to serve in the military. But his wife, Sara, has bitter objections, so Fleetwood conjures up the spirits of Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman to encourage him, as "storytellers, all--lovers of song, beauty, and the fight, all." But the discussions turn sour, and prejudices bubble to the surface, leaving Fleetwood to realize that sometimes words aren't enough, and sometimes plowshares must be hammered back into swords.